Strategy: E-Discovery, Mobility and the Cloud

Kurt Marko09/01/12

Strategy: E-Discovery, Mobility and the Cloud

IT pros charged with data archiving and BC/DR are often called on to help with e-discovery, and for good reason. But two megatrends reshaping enterprise data management—adoption of public cloud services, including social media, and a dramatic increase in use of mobile devices—also impact discovery efforts. Both complicate an organization’s ability to find and preserve legally relevant information by loosening IT’s control over information repositories.

In this report, we’ll outline the legal and technical issues posed by the cloud and ­mobile devices, suggest some IT and HR policy changes to address these challenges, and examine software that can pull data from cloud services and ­mobile devices.

But e-discovery may be just the canary in the coal mine signaling a larger problem that BC/DR managers must address: Cloud and mobility complicate finding information not only under threat of litigation, but all the time. So tools and practices put into use for e-discovery could well improve an organization’s overall data management posture. (S5650912)